One of my favorite things to do with my grandparents was camping. They loved to camp. They traveled all over the country both before and after my grandfather retired. For the most part, I would camp with them at Fort Pickens State (and later National) Park. However, a few times we traveled with them to Tennessee and Kentucky. Along the way we would stay over a night or two in a State or National Park.
One year we stayed in a campground that was on Duck River in Tennessee. I struggle to remember the name of the park, but with a little research a likely candidate is Henry Horton State Park. While I was staying at this park I went on a nature trail walk with my dad and "Pawpaw". Dad was always the adventurous explorer when it came to the outdoors. He wanted to go down from the trail to the river - but the spur off the trail was steep. He told me to wait - which I did.
Pawpaw began following my dad a bit behind him, then he turned around. No doubt it was to remind me to stay where I was, but I interpreted it as "come on." And so, I did!
Flatlander that I was, I was soon racing toward the river at top speed - right past Pawpaw and then right past Dad - through the poison ivy that Dad was investigating and face first onto the rock ledge as the edge of the river. The air was knocked out of me, I may have very briefly lost consciousness, and my tennis ball I was holding went floating down the river. The first thing I said was, "Dad, go get my ball!" Wisely, he refused. He and Pawpaw got me back up the bank to get checked out and cleaned up. Amazingly, I had no itchy consequences of poison ivy.
Only years later did I realize that the trail I tumbled down was part of a much older path that one part of my family had been following for more than two centuries.
The genealogical trail is certain from Duck River to the Gulf shores of Pensacola. The trail to Duck River from the Old World through Maryland is probable - but not fully proven. The remainder of this article will travel that story through a few different surnames.
The story begins with Samuel Lane, who in 1664 two years after he had been ejected as the Vicar of Long Houghton, Northumberland (England) he immigrated to the Maryland Colony paying his own fare. He inherits a place called Brawsley Hall and acquires other properties in what became Anne Arundel County, Maryland and specifically, Harwood. He was "a gentleman, chirurgeon, doctor, doctor of physics, Commissioner of Anne Arundel County, justice of peace, gentlemen of the quorum and military major." In 1682, though, he died in skirmishes associated with Lord Baltimore's Wars.
Samuel's granddaughter, Elizabeth Lane, married David Weems. David was originally from Wemyss, Fife, Scotland, but immigrated to Mashes Seat in Anne Arundel County, MD in the early 1700s. David was the owner (or part owner) of a Privateer Schooner, Williamanta and a Sloop, Washington. During the American Revolution ships like these would protect coastal plantations from British raids, attack British ships, and disrupt British supply lines in the Chesapeake Bay.
David's grandson, John Weems, is believed to have been born in Mashes Seat but had already moved to Orange County, North Carolina near Hillsborough by the mid-1760s before the Revolution. At the age of twenty-two he purchased nearly four-hundred acres of land, suggesting he had substantial financial resources or backing. In 1790 he sold that property and invested in land on Lick Creek near Bulls Gap in what would become Greene County, TN (36°12'35.67"N, 83° 2'36.77"W). John's son, William, would move to Maury County, TN sometime between 1805 and 1811. This is where we first encounter Duck River as it runs directly through Maury County.
William had four children. One died unmarried. Two went to Chickasaw Territory in Mississippi to encounter misfortune. One was witness to a murder and the other was the wife of the victim. The third, my ancestor - Catherine Weems Tombs, stayed in Maury County where the family continued farming. There they witnessed the Battle of Columbia and the Reconstruction Era that followed the Civil War.
With Reconstruction came the expansion of the railway in the American south. Migration that had followed waterways, like Duck River, were now following the tracks as they were being laid.
Catherine's grandson was William Ira Goad, Catherine probably influenced her daughter to name after her brother who had seen such misfortune in Mississippi. William tried to farm for a while but gave it up sometime after 1880 and began working as a Railroad laborer. He followed the railroad south to Repton, AL in the first ten years of the 20th Century. He then settled there and opened and operated a supply store. By 1920 the store was gone and he had moved to live in Childress, TX.
His daughter, Susie May Goad Huckaby, married a railroad carpenter, A.O. Huckaby, in Wayne, TN. They followed the L&N Railroad with her father to Repton and then on to Pensacola. There they remained.
Their son, Ira, turned around to tell me to stay right where I was - but I, like those before me kept coming.




